Federal Air Marshalls are supposed to be highly trained in diffusing a wide variety of violent and dangerous situations during flight, and they are supposed to blend in with the other passengers such that they are average looking and do not stand out as law enforcement officers.

But, key to their ability to do their most serious, and dangerous job, is their intensive training. Again, per Wikipedia: Federal Air Marshals go through an intense, two-phase training program. The first phase of the program is a seven-week basic law enforcement course. This training is completed at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico; air marshals also receive follow-on training at the William J. Hughes Technical Center in New Jersey at the Federal Air Marshal Service Training Center. Their training is tailored to the role that the Federal Air Marshals will perform while on the job. Some of the specific areas covered in this training include constitutional law, marksmanship, physical fitness, behavioral observation, defensive tactics, emergency medical assistance, and other law enforcement techniques. The second phase trains the candidates for tasks that they will be expected to carry out in the field. This training places an emphasis on perfecting the marksmanship skills of the candidates. This is a necessity of the job due to the tight confines of an aircraft, as well as the number of bystanders. Candidates who successfully complete this training will be assigned to one of 21 field offices, where they begin their missions.

So WTF happened on April 6th, 2017 aboard Delta flight 221 which was traveling from Manchester, England, to JFK Airport?

On this transatlantic flight an unidentified US Air Marshal reportedly (and presumably accidentally) left her loaded gun in the airplane's bathroom where it was discovered by a passenger.

Obviously the pic above is neither the gun nor the airplane's bathroom but use your imagination and just imagine that you were aboard a plane, you went into the bathroom and there was a loaded semiautomatic pistol lying there on the floor... Worse yet, imagine that you were aboard a plane and someone less scrupulous than you - perhaps even a malicious or mentally ill person - went into the bathroom and found a loaded semiautomatic pistol lying there on the floor...

Fortunately the passenger who found the gun was responsible and stable and turned it over to a crew member (who then returned the gun to the inattentive Air Marshall).

For reasons unknown the incident was not reported to Delta or TSA until days after the fact, after which the TSA gave limited comment, reportedly only confirming that it was aware of the incident and was reviewing the circumstances; but CNN has reported that "the newly-hired agent remains on active flight duty." CNN also reported that this was not the first time that an Air Marshal has "lost" their gun. In 2015, an agent left his gun in the bathroom stall at Newark Liberty International Airport, where it was later discovered by a janitor and nearly a decade earlier another Air marshal reportedly dropped a clip of bullets on the floor of a Southwest Airlines flight before takeoff. I don't know about you, but A) with a reported annual budget of $835,000,000.00 I expect a little more from Air Marshalls and B) stories like this are not particularly comforting...

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (~ A. Einstein)

THIS BLOG POST (AS ARE ALL OF HABERPA BLOG POSTS) IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT WHICH IS PRIMARILY DESIGNED, BY WAY OF REAL WORLD EXAMPLE, TO ASSIST THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN AVOIDING CONDUCT WHICH COULD FORESEEABLY RESULT IN ARREST AND PROSECUTION!